Sofia Bothwell

Food is taken care of by eating when hungry and stopping when full - end of! Our weight is taken care of by eating when hungry and stopping when full.  Food is a source of nourishment. Now how come food got mixed up with emotions?  Food when full suppresses emotion. The minute you eat when full you have crossed the line from food being nourishment to food being linked with emotion. Linked in a dysfunctional way. Linked in a way that makes it an addiction.   Addiction is any activity that suppresses your emotions. You are angry - you eat when full. You have just had a difficult day - you eat when full. You are stressed - you eat when full. You are bored - you eat when full. Eating when full has become your way of coping with your unresolved emotional stuff.  So inherent in becoming and staying slim and free from all  addiction is the resolving of our emotional stuff.  My workshops, self-help support groups and one to one sessions over the years have foc...

Coming out of addiction entails tapping into your intuitive guidance. That simply means knowing what to do instead of indulging in addiction.  We find out what to do instead of indulging in addiction by first of all noticing the cravings and then stopping them in their tracks by asking - What feeling is this? Now this question alone is starting you on your journey to your intuitive guidance because feelings or emotions are an intrinsic part of that intuitive guidance. Feelings of joy = yes go this way. Feeling of fear = no, be cautious. Feelings of interest = yes explore this. For more on healing addictions and eating disorders see my books Addiction Demystified, True Slimness and Simply Full. Skype, fb video calls, Zoom Sessions £45 for 1 hour Session. Email:Sofia 2227@gmail.com

A Healing Balm I  wrote in my previous blog about the emotional pain and unresolved emotional issues that underlie all cravings. The pandemic of addiction, in my opinion, effects and has effected more people than the Plague, Spanish Flu and Corona all put together. Of course I don’t have the figures to back this up – look it up if you are interested – I am hazarding guesses here for dramatic effect, nonetheless I am sure there is  more truth in there than meets the initially unbelieving eye.  Let's explore it. Count it up - people who are heroin addicts, cocaine addicts, pot heads? How can we have numbers or accurate statistics on that, when essentially it is a secretive behaviour? Only those involved in it reveal it to each other. They do not reveal it to sober folk or people asking them to fill in a questionnaire – Do you do heroin? So we do not have accurate data on how many people are illegal drug users. We have numbers on people who are medically prescribed antidepre...

Awareness is a key word in giving up any addiction. Being aware you have a 'problem'. Being aware of your 'triggers'. Being aware of your patterns of behaviour. Being aware of when you are strong in the face of cravings, and when you are weak in the face of cravings.  And ultimately, in giving up any addiction one has to be aware of the underlying emotional issues that cause you to jump into that dysfunctional and dangerous habit of drink, drugs, even 'food when full' is dangerous when you observe the huge amounts of excess weight that is, quite frankly, now common to see people carrying. Susie Orbach (author of Fat is a Feminist Issue) said that overeating was of epidemic proportions in the 1970's. And have things got better? No. Now we can easily and accurately say overeating and other addictions are a very real pandemic today. It is also accurate to say that society is okay with addiction. Drinking and smoking are ''normal''. Carrying a fe...

Rebirthing Breathwork is a healing meditation on the breath. We all breathe but we do not breathe consciously. We are totally unaware of how deep we are breathing or if we are breathing through our mouth or nose. We also usually leave gaps between our inhale and exhale. There is a vast difference between that kind of unconscious breathing and the type of breathing we do in a Rebirthing Breathwork Session. In a Rebirthing Breathwork Session you are guided by your Rebirthing Coach to connect your inhale with your exhale - that means no gaps between inhale and exhale. Thus you become more aware of the Chi or Prana which is the Life Force Energy within the body. This is important because if you have suffered a trauma (we all have) that subtle Life Force Energy gets blocked. Blocked Energy / blocked Chi can be said to be a huge contributing factor in all addictions, disease, ailments, aches and pains whether they be emotional or physical. Through the breath you can liberate that blocked Li...

On a walk in the countryside today I heard the bleating of sheep. And as I sat down to rest I could notice one cry was almost like the cry of a human in deep emotional pain. I had to listen and it carried such agony of a mother frantically calling her young. If I could have translated it, it would have said, ''Where are you?!!!'' The utter desperation, pain and agony in all the cries became evident to me. I felt a deep sadness, and coming from a farming background I new exactly what it was all about. The mother sheep  were in one field and the babies in another. SEPARATED. The cries were about that. They did not want to be separated as no mother human or otherwise wants to be separated from her baby. It causes the greatest emotional and psychological pain across the animal and human kingdoms. When I was 17 years old and realising  where my meat came from and the suffering it caused, I became Vegetarian. I was lucky enough at the age of 13 to have had a friend who was ...

When I gave up compulsive eating I thought it was the end - a goal achieved, a long awaited destination finally reached. I discovered in fact it was the start of a new life for me. For to actually live a life free from the compulsion to eat when full changes things. One of the first things to change was I left my family home to live with my boyfriend and six months later to move to London. When you change from being a person who eats when full to a person who stops when full, you are actually becoming a person who switches from suppressing their emotional stuff to someone who is aware of and resolves their emotional stuff. This is a huge difference. You change from not really being aware of how you feel about things to being someone who is very aware about how you feel about things. You change from someone who does not really take into consideration what you deeply know to be true and become someone who actively asks yourself what you would want and like from any given situation. You ...